KIRKUS REVIEW

In the wake of loss, a teen musician
struggles to get her groove back.

Susannah Hayes cherishes the long
tradition of midnight music lessons in her father’s home studio. Here, along
with chord progressions and songwriting, her dad taught her to trust her
instincts and her heart. But lately, her dad, a former rock star, has been
longing for the past, making it difficult for Susannah to connect with him in
the present. When her father dies, any hope of reconnecting goes with him. As
proxy, she resolves to locate his former band members, but before she can begin
the legwork, financial hardship dictates that she and her mother move away from
the life she’s always known. With the move, Susannah finds herself struggling
to start over while mourning her loss. A lot happens to the grieving teen over
the course of the 400-plus pages, but Smetana deftly avoids overwhelming
readers. Susannah has three potential suitors; she fights to come to grips with
her mother’s new dating life; she meets the grandmother whom she’d been led to
believe dead; and she works to hold onto her best friend from her old life
while making music with new friends. Susannah’s first-person narration is
punctuated with evocative descriptions of the Santa Anas and the wildfires they
bring—characters in their own right. Characters appear white by default with
the exception of a love interest with a Latino surname.

A touching, albeit lengthy, story
about the painful process of moving on. (Fiction. 15-18)

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